Help me out here, legality aside, was this guy justified in any way, shape, or form?
That creeper mustache might be confusing, which is why the New York Post informs us that the man with the mustache, James Spencer, is actually the accused killer. He's the vigilante — well, at least in the sense that he took a registered-sex-offender-pedophile, who was trying to meet up with a minor for sex, off the streets ... not so much in how he did that.
Anyhow,
A Texas man posed as a minor and lured a convicted child sex offender to his death because he felt law enforcement didn't do enough to keep pedophiles in prison.
James Spencer III, 24, had been in contact with Sean Connery Showers, 37, on the messaging app Kik, where he posed as an underage individual as the two planned to meet up while some of their messages appeared 'sexual in nature,' according to ABC 13.
Showers had shown up to the 900 block of Northwood St in Houston on May 29, 2023, when a car pulled up beside him before the driver fired numerous 'automatic-like' shots and sped off.
In 2009, Showers pleaded guilty to federal child porn possession and was sentenced to 30 months in prison, along with being required to register as a sex offender.
Spencer had been in contact with the pedophile on the messaging app Kik, which is apparently where pedophiles like to hang out and talk to minors. Their messages were sexual in nature, and the meetup at the park would've been a sexual encounter had Spencer been the minor Showers was hoping to meet.
Here's a little context as to how James Spencer felt about pedophiles before this all went down:
'(A) third party states (Spencer) told them he believed police were not doing enough to keep pedophiles incarcerated and (Spencer) wanted to rob and harm those type of men because they would do bad things to little children and other people and he knew how to track them by an app on the phone,' his bail order, obtained by KTRK read. 'A month later, defendant made the same comment that "if the cops were not going to do anything, maybe he should kill them himself.'"
Totally understand where Spencer is coming from here, though I don't want to encourage this kind of vigilantism because, man, what if you kill the wrong guy? What if James Spencer had opened fire on the wrong vehicle? What if the man he'd been tracking had a serious mental disability? These are all things to consider when you take the law into your own hands.
Also, if you want to be a vigilante you are going to have to live with the consequences, no matter how lax our authorities have become with the whole pedophile thing. Whether or not it's worth it is a matter between you and God.
Spencer was arrested on Wednesday by the Gulf Coast Violent Offenders Task Force.
He is currently being held on a $25,000 bond at the Harris County Jail on the first-degree felony murder charge according to jail records.
The district attorney's office filed a motion to have him held without bond, citing that he is out on bond for possession of a controlled substance charge in Brazoria County, according to KTRK.
See what I'm saying?
This is a very tough subject, and I know you guys won't disappoint in the comments. Let the conversations begin, and try to keep them appropriate.
I'll leave this here for you:
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